Name: Carl Jarrett

Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Previous Locations: Nelson, BC, Canada

Career Path: NFS Art Director - Vehicles

Previous Career Paths: CAD Drafter, asbestos remover, paper deliverer, bread slicer, visual FX artist for cartoons, professional astronaut.

Car: 2007 BMW 335i chip+intake (family car), 2008 Toyota Tundra CrewMax 5.7L, 1989 Mazda RX7 race car in progress, 1967 Fiat 500 F restoration, not yet in progress.

Fav Past Cars: 97 328is BMW modded, Factory Five Cobra replica track/street car. 

Next Car: Scratch built street/track car.

Car Passions: Almost anything with a engine. Offshore powerboat racing, motorcycle racing, Paris-Dakar/Baja 1000 off road endurance racing, motocross, all forms of sports car racing, open wheel racing, rally, grassroots racing, custom choppers, custom rods and sleds, low riders... list goes on. Got started at a young age, drew nothing but cars and trucks, loved racing RC cars, building my own frankenstien RC cars, dad took me to some car shows/races and boat shows/races at a young age, which got me hooked into just about anything to do with racing. Anything hand fabricated gets my gears going, love building things with my hands including cars.

Personal Style: Jeans, a black t-shirt, and some Vans.

Favourite Bands of the Moment: Sublime! The Dirty Heads, Beastie Boys Pauls Boutique.

Personal Motto: If you're going to do something, do it right, the first time.

 

The Stohr F1000 is a fairly new beast to the hotly contested Formula 1000 series run in SCCA Club Racing. First offered back in 2006, the car has undergone a few revisions to bring it to its current state of development. I had the chance to spend some time watching, listening, and observing a few of these cars at the track a few months ago, and they have some nice details I will share with you all. I like to share. The Stohr car, and other F1000 cars, seemingly takes a fair bit of influence from...

I feel I need to take a slightly different approach to my Photos of the Year for 2011. The year for me wasn't really spent Speedhunting like it was for many members of the team, 2011 meant a lot of time in front of a computer working hard at trying to make our latest Need For Speed title the best it could be. I suppose you could say this is Speedhunting in a different realm, as my day to day was still all about fast and beautiful machines. I wanted to attend Formula D, SEMA, PRI, and many other...

To be honest, I don't know much about this car, other than it looks fantastic. I saw it at the SCCA Double National race back in July and snapped a few pictures of it, but no owners nearby. From what I can tell, it could be a Brabham BT21 Repco, I'm sure one of you readers knows something more about it? Here's your chance to educate us all. - Carl Jarrett

You might remember some of the articles that I posted from Portland in the last few months, such as the one on SCCA race cars and a behind the scenes on RaceEnergy Honda team . This is the last post in that vein for now, and I saved the best for last, at least for the car geeks like me. An in-depth look into a professionally build SCCA GT3 car based around a 2006+ FG2 Honda Civic Si coupe. Construction of this car began almost by accident, when Jim Hargrove, who was campaining his '76 Civic GT...

An important chapter in our Things To Do Before You Die series is getting your hands dirty. Melinda Neil and I (who both work at EA) have teamed up to share with you some of the reasons why working on your own car is such an important thing to do. Indeed, Melinda and I both spend our weekends away from the EA office working on our cars. And although it doesn't sound glamorous, often it's these experiences, grazed knuckles and all, that you end up cherishing for the rest of your life. Melinda...

A couple of weeks ago I was invited by the guys at RaceEnergy to join them at Portland International Raceway for the first Regional SCCA Club Race of the 2011 season. Club races are usually a three day affair; with the track open on Fridays for testing they normally run a qualifying session and race on both Saturday and Sunday which makes for a fair bit of track time over the three days. I met with Jim and Scott Hargrove at the Skip Barber 3 Day Racing School back in October ; turns out they live...

Lamborghini has just released a shot of thier upcoming flagship V12 successor to the Murcielago this morning, which showcases brand new technology to the marque. For the first time they are using an all carbon fibre monocoque using some new patented processes on the upcoming production car. The whole monocoque weighs just 324lbs and is apparently much stiffer than the outgoing aluminum body shells. By incorporating aluminum mounting points into the lamination, it allows them to securely attach the...

 

Check out Marchettino's video of the first shakedown test of the one-off Ferrari P4/5 Competitzione. They will be racing at this years Nurburgring 24 hours. The car is being commissioned by James Glickenhaus, and is based off of a Ferrari F430 GT2 race car and not an Enzo as the street car was. Don't mind the music at the beginning, but be sure to turn up the sound, and watch in 1080p!

- Carl Jarrett

Birthdays are an odd thing to celebrate. If you think about it, we celebrate the fact that you have less time on this planet to enjoy the people and things we love. On the other hand, we tend celebrate these things on your birthdays as well. At the beginning of October I was given the surprise of all surprises for my 30th birthday... a trip to Monterey, California to attend the Skip Barber 3 Day Racing School at none other than Laguna Seca!! My fiancee and my little girl actually surprised me a few...

A friend of mine at work sent me this the other week, and I'm still obsessed with it! And guess what? Its for sale! If only I had an extra 39k, and it was black, it would be mine in a heartbeat. Car started its life out as a plain old (but still beautiful and classic) 1995 911 Carrera in Polar Silver, and has been transformed into the beast you see here. The 993's were the last of the air-cooled 911's, and have held thier value extremely well compared to some of the newer water cooled...